Bandwagon Nerds News Report (10/22/2026): BioWare Closes, Poison Ivy Grows & Glee Returns

EA closes BioWare and cancels Mass Effect, HBO develops Poison Ivy, Glee returns and Cyberpunk 2077 gets a massive free update.

Wednesday delivered one of the most painful gaming stories of the year alongside two major television revivals that could not be more different.

Electronic Arts is closing BioWare after more than three decades and ending development on the next Mass Effect, bringing one of RPG gaming’s most influential studios to an abrupt end. HBO is moving forward with a Poison Ivy series from the creative world of The Penguin, while Disney+ and Hulu have officially ordered a new Glee. Cyberpunk 2077 somehow continues growing six years after launch, and Croteam finally revealed the next full Serious Sam game.

It’s the Bandwagon Nerds News Report for October 22, 2026!

EA Is Closing BioWare and Ending the Next Mass Effect

Electronic Arts is shutting down BioWare and ending early development on the next Mass Effect as part of a larger restructuring that will eliminate roughly 400 jobs across the company.

BioWare confirmed the closure Wednesday in a message reflecting on more than 30 years of games that included Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age, Mass Effect and Anthem. EA said the decision followed a broader review of where the publisher intends to invest resources moving forward.

There really is no way to frame this as an ordinary studio closure. BioWare helped define what modern role-playing games could become, particularly the idea that player decisions, relationships and conversations could matter as much as combat systems or character statistics. Mass Effect and Dragon Age turned those ideas into enormous franchises while Knights of the Old Republic remains one of the most influential licensed games ever made.

The cancellation of the next Mass Effect makes the closure hurt even more because that project represented the most obvious path toward rebuilding BioWare after years of turbulence. The studio struggled through Anthem, saw Dragon Age go through multiple creative shifts, and spent years shrinking while other EA teams absorbed employees. There was always a possibility Mass Effect could become the project that stabilized everything.

Now it will not happen, at least not in the form BioWare was developing.

EA’s restructuring extends well beyond one studio. Respawn Entertainment and DICE are being brought together on Star Wars: Battlefront 3, while the publisher is putting additional resources behind EA Sports, The Sims and skate. EA also confirmed a new social-first open-world American football project called Project Gridiron and said a new Fight Night has entered pre-production.

Those projects may all become successful games, but they do not make BioWare interchangeable. Studios build institutional knowledge and creative identities over decades, and once those teams disappear, recreating what made them special is considerably harder than simply assigning the intellectual property somewhere else.

There will almost certainly be another Mass Effect someday because the name remains too valuable to permanently abandon. Whatever comes next, though, will no longer be a BioWare game.

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HBO Is Developing a Poison Ivy Series

HBO and DC Studios are developing a television series centered on Poison Ivy, with The Penguin showrunner Lauren LeFranc in talks to executive produce the project.

The series remains in early development, meaning there is no cast, writer or production date yet. What makes the announcement immediately interesting is the involvement of LeFranc and the potential connection to the grounded Gotham storytelling that made The Penguin one of DC’s most successful television projects.

Poison Ivy is a character who has spent decades moving between outright villain, antihero, environmental extremist and increasingly complicated romantic partner for Harley Quinn. That gives a television adaptation considerably more room than another straightforward story about Batman trying to stop Pamela Isley from covering Gotham in vines.

HBO also does not need to turn the series into a conventional superhero show. The Penguin demonstrated how effectively Gotham characters can work when their comic-book origins become the foundation rather than the entire genre, and Ivy has enough body horror, environmental obsession and psychological complexity to support something considerably stranger.

The biggest question will be where this fits within DC’s expanding continuity structure. Matt Reeves’ Batman universe remains separate from James Gunn’s central DCU, while HBO is now producing projects connected to several different corners of DC.

Wherever Poison Ivy eventually grows, attaching one of The Penguin’s central creative voices is a much more encouraging starting point than announcing the character first and figuring out what the show actually is later.

Glee Is Officially Coming Back

Disney+ and Hulu have ordered a new Glee series, bringing Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan’s musical franchise back more than a decade after the original show ended.

The revival will again center on a high school show choir but is expected to introduce a mostly new generation of characters rather than rebuilding the original New Directions lineup. Lea Michele is already in discussions to reprise Rachel Berry, creating at least one direct connection to the Fox series.

Glee was one of those television phenomena that became so enormous so quickly that it is easy to forget how unusual the original premise actually was. A prime-time network musical comedy built around teenagers performing weekly covers should have been incredibly difficult to sustain, yet at its peak the series generated hit albums, concert tours and versions of songs that occasionally became more culturally visible than the originals.

A revival in 2026 has both an easier and harder job. Musical performance is everywhere through TikTok, YouTube and streaming platforms, which means audiences no longer need a network television show to discover young performers covering familiar songs. At the same time, that environment gives Glee an enormous pool of current music and changing youth culture to work with.

The series also carries a complicated legacy that Disney and Murphy cannot simply ignore. The deaths of Cory Monteith, Naya Rivera and Mark Salling permanently changed how people look back on the original cast, while several storylines and character choices have aged considerably differently than they played in 2009.

That does not mean Glee should remain frozen in the past. It means a new version needs an actual reason to exist beyond asking people to remember when “Don’t Stop Believin’” first echoed through the McKinley High auditorium.

Cyberpunk 2077 Gets One of Its Biggest Updates Yet

CD Projekt Red detailed Cyberpunk 2077 Update 2.5, a free Edgerunners 2-themed expansion arriving October 22 on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, with Switch 2 following shortly afterward.

The update adds Clampdown, a new side quest set before Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2, along with a five-piece gear set based on King and a new radio station featuring music from both Edgerunners series. Another new quest, Welcome to Paradise, sends V on a guided tour through Night City narrated by city founder Richard Night and adds 12 Minor Arcana tarot cards to discover.

Those additions alone would qualify as a substantial update for a six-year-old single-player RPG, but CD Projekt Red is also introducing a completely new dual-wielding playstyle for Power pistols and revolvers. Players can customize visible cyberware through new Glamdoc locations, use hairstyles previously restricted to NPCs and access additional clothing collections.

The biggest technical change may be cross-platform mod support powered by mod.io. Selected community-created mods will now be accessible directly through the game on consoles as well as PC, with PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and eventually Switch 2 included.

Console players are also getting a field-of-view slider, while the update adds quality-of-life improvements, graphics features and additional PlayStation 5 Pro optimizations.

Cyberpunk 2077’s post-launch history has become almost absurd when compared with where the game began. CD Projekt Red spent years repairing a launch so troubled that Sony temporarily removed the PlayStation version from sale, then gradually transformed the game through patches, Phantom Liberty and continued feature updates.

Update 2.5 arriving alongside a second Netflix anime illustrates what Cyberpunk has become after surviving that disaster. Night City is no longer a damaged game CD Projekt Red is trying to fix; it is an active entertainment world the company intends to keep expanding.

Serious Sam Is Finally Getting a Full Third Encounter

Devolver Digital and Croteam announced Serious Sam: The Third Encounter, the next major entry in the long-running first-person shooter series.

The game returns Sam “Serious” Stone to another enormous battle against Mental’s armies, with Croteam emphasizing massive enemy counts, open combat spaces and the intentionally excessive weapons that have defined Serious Sam since the original game arrived in 2001.

The title is slightly confusing because Serious Sam 3: BFE already exists, but The Third Encounter is positioned as the actual continuation of the classic encounter naming structure rather than another remake or remaster. Croteam has not announced a release date yet, with PC currently confirmed as the first platform.

Serious Sam occupies a useful space in modern shooters because it has never needed to pretend its core idea is sophisticated. The games throw absurd numbers of enemies onto the screen, give Sam increasingly ridiculous weapons and challenge players to survive by moving constantly while everything explodes around them.

That simplicity became more distinctive as first-person shooters moved toward cinematic campaigns, extraction mechanics and persistent online progression. Serious Sam does not need a battle pass or elaborate gear economy to explain why shooting hundreds of monsters is entertaining.

Croteam has experimented with very different ideas through The Talos Principle, but there is something satisfying about watching the studio return to the series that originally put it on the map and apparently deciding subtlety still is not required.

Phantom Blade Zero Is Almost Here

S-GAME released the launch trailer for Phantom Blade Zero ahead of the wuxia action RPG’s October 29 digital release on PlayStation 5 and PC.

The game follows Soul, an assassin framed for the murder of his organization’s leader and left with only 66 days to uncover the conspiracy behind the crime. Combat draws heavily from Chinese martial arts and combines fast swordplay, counters and elaborate weapon techniques inside a dark semi-open world.

S-GAME also announced that physical PlayStation 5 editions will arrive in 2027, including Standard, Deluxe and Ultimate packages. That creates an unusual split where players interested primarily in the game can begin next week while collectors will need to wait considerably longer.

Phantom Blade Zero has spent years generating attention through combat demonstrations that look almost impossibly choreographed, which means the release now has to answer the question trailers never can: does all of that movement actually feel as good to control as it looks?

The timing is interesting because action games have become increasingly comfortable borrowing pieces from Souls-likes without becoming Souls games themselves. Phantom Blade Zero appears much more interested in speed and martial-arts spectacle than deliberately heavy combat, potentially giving it a clearer identity in a genre crowded with stamina bars and carefully timed dodge rolls.

After years of impressive demonstrations, the real test is finally only a week away.

The Apothecary Diaries Gets a Worldwide Game Release

Koei Tecmo will release The Apothecary Diaries: The False Imperial Brother worldwide on March 18, 2027 for PlayStation 5, Switch 2, Nintendo Switch and PC.

The mystery adventure follows Maomao as she investigates another conspiracy inside the imperial palace, using her knowledge of medicine, poisons and human behavior to uncover what is actually happening beneath the court’s elaborate social structure.

The game uses an original story rather than directly adapting material from the anime, giving fans a new mystery while preserving the characters and setting that helped The Apothecary Diaries become one of the most successful recent anime franchises.

That is the right direction for a property built around mysteries. Replaying cases viewers already watched Maomao solve would remove much of the appeal, while an original investigation allows the game to use player interaction as something more meaningful than clicking through familiar scenes.

The Apothecary Diaries also translates unusually well to adventure-game structure. Maomao already spends much of the story gathering evidence, questioning assumptions and using small details to reach conclusions other characters overlook.

Sometimes the easiest licensed-game design is simply recognizing that the source material was already halfway to being a game.

Wednesday’s news cycle was filled with franchises moving forward, but BioWare’s closure makes it difficult not to think about what disappears when an industry constantly reorganizes around whatever seems most profitable next.

Mass Effect and Dragon Age did not become important because somebody identified valuable intellectual property on a spreadsheet. They became valuable because specific groups of writers, designers, artists and developers spent years building worlds people cared enough about to argue over fictional relationships and replay entire 40-hour games because they regretted one conversation choice.

Cyberpunk 2077 provides the opposite example. CD Projekt Red had every reason to cut its losses after one of gaming’s most notorious launches, but years of continued investment eventually turned the game into something strong enough to support another anime, another enormous update and an expanding franchise.

Studios need money to survive, and no creative company gets unlimited chances. Wednesday was still a harsh reminder that when a studio disappears, intellectual property may survive while the creative culture that made it matter can be much harder to replace.

This report includes information from: EA.com, BioWare.com, Variety.com, TheHollywoodReporter.com, Deadline.com, Reuters.com, Cyberpunk.net, CDProjektRed.com, Gematsu.com and Koei Tecmo-related reporting.